


Am I Calming or Stoking the Fire?

by prettypheromoans



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Female pronouns for Pidge, Hair Pulling Kink, Keith and pidge are bros - Freeform, M/M, Mostly Keith’s POV, Praise Kink, Probably OOC Keith, Rivals to Lovers, Slow Burn, Smut, klance, lance and hunk are bros, pidge is sometimes called Katie, probably several other kinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 16:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14312664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettypheromoans/pseuds/prettypheromoans
Summary: Keith is tired of fighting with Lance and develops a plan to get him to be nice to him by flirting with him. It works. Maybe too well.





	Am I Calming or Stoking the Fire?

**Author's Note:**

> Just gonna say right now that I am just... a busy person, so there’s no telling if I’ll even finish this fic or be able to update it even semi-regularly. You’ve been warned.

Keith was fed up. 

He knew he and Lance could work well together. They’d done it before. When on the same page, they flowed together seamlessly. And yet.

Keith grunted as a droid shot him in his right shoulder, prompting the floor to open up beneath him and dump him unceremoniously into the ‘Loser Bin,’ as Pidge had dubbed it, below. As soon as he realized what had happened, he growled in frustration. Fucking Lance. Lance was supposed to be guarding his right side, and yet here he was, in the Loser Bin, not ten seconds after the simulation had started. The rest of the team was quick to follow: first Pidge, pouting as she rubbed her hip, then Shiro, who was also favoring a shoulder, Hunk, cradling his head, and finally Lance, grasping the back of his knee. Keith was livid. If Lance had just managed to keep him in the game, the whole team would have lasted a lot longer.

Keith could practically feel the steam coming out of his own ears. This was all because Lance had been teasing him when he should have been guarding him instead. Keith had tried to tell him to shut up and focus, but as always, he didn’t fucking listen. He couldn’t help screaming in frustration and sending Lance a searing glare as he marched himself straight to his room as soon as the bin opened up. There was no way he could deal with anymore of Lance’s shit today, training be damned.

—

Half and hour later saw Pidge inviting herself into Keith’s room and plopping down onto his bed, where he was currently still screaming into his pillow. It had been months of this nonsense and he and Lance’s relationship still hadn’t gotten any better.

“I know Shiro tells you this all the time, but you and Lance’s animosity is really holding back the team,” she sighed.

Keith groaned. As much as he loved Katie and loved Shiro for forcing them to be friends, sometimes he really felt like Shiro had just done it so he could have another person to repeat the same advice to him. 

“I know,” Keith griped. “But what the hell am I supposed to do about it? He’s the one who always wants to start a fight.”

“That’s true,” she started, “But he’s not going to stop on his own, you know? And it doesn’t help your relationship overall when anyone else steps in. So that kind of leaves it up to you, buddy.”

Keith made a noise of distress. “How am I supposed to get him to stop arguing with me? I mean he mostly just seems to want me to cut my hair, which, uh, no.” Keith had a couple... reasons for keeping his hair long.

“Wellll...” Pidge trailed, adjusting her glasses, “You remember that thing you were telling me you did to Johnny Ryce in the eighth grade? And Lucas Everson in ninth?”

Keith’s eyes slowly widened in realization as it dawned on him. He finally turned to look at her. “You mean...?”

In the eighth grade, there had been a boy named Johnny Ryce in his class who has constantly stolen his pencils and taunted him with them as he used them, pretending they were his. Keith had quickly realized that, having no way to prove the pencils were his, his constant attempts to call Johnny out frequently ended with Keith himself being chastised by the teacher. And with Johnny starting to encroach upon his other possessions, such as erasers and rulers, he decided he needed a better alternative. He started lending Johnny the pencils freely, even going as far as to softly touch his hand or shoulder and tell him he ‘just needed to ask.’ Eventually, Keith had been able to simply smile at Johnny and ask politely for his school supplies to have them be returned. He’d even let Johnny keep a few to ‘remember him by.”

In ninth grade, a similar situation arose with a boy named Lucas Everson. Lucas, much like Lance, seemed to have a vendetta against his long hair, even going as far as to try and cut it once. However, unlike Lance, Lucas also seemed to have a problem with just about everything Keith wore. To counteract him, Keith began complimenting Lucas on his own fashion choices and encouraging him to do things like run his fingers through his hair, find things for him to wear, and, most lasciviously, ‘take his clothes off if he disliked them so much.’ He ended up losing his virginity to him, letting him pull his hair the whole way through.

And Lucas hadn’t even been the last boy he’d used that trick on. There had been several throughout the rest of his high school career whom he’d ended up wooing to get them to stop antagonizing him, and even one or two at the Garrison. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. But...

He bit his lip in uncertainty. “But every boy I’ve done that to has ended up with a crush on me. I can’t do that up here. I... we need Lance to form Voltron, and we won’t be able to do that if I like, break his heart, or something.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “And what about the alternative? Being able to form Voltron, but having to fight with him constantly?”

Keith gnawed his lip some more. However long he was going to survive out here, he really did not want to have to spend the rest of his life being antagonized by some asshole who didn’t know when to quit. He wanted to die earlier than he needed to due to that asshole even less. And so, he made up his mind, and began to form a plan.

—

“Alright team, we’re going to try that droid simulation again today. Let’s try to keep it together this time, okay?” Said Shiro, looking sternly at Lance.

The rest of the team vocalized their agreement, but Lance had other things to vocalize, apparently. “Oh, come on! I owned that drill, it was Keith who couldn’t keep up!”

“Lance, the whole point of that drill is to protect each other, not ourselves. You let Keith get hit almost immediately, and then we couldn’t close our ranks fast enough to continue” Shiro pointed out. “Try to do better this time,” he said, and then walked out. Pidge and Hunk followed silently.

Lance is grumbling to himself as he moves to follow, and Keith takes a deep breath to steel himself. It’s now or never.

Keith gently grasps Lance’s wrist before he can walk away. “Just,” he says softly, tilting his eyes up into Lance’s. The height difference is...convenient, “focus on keeping me safe, please.”

Lance is clearly taken aback, eyes wide with disbelief. But, he must not as much of an asshole as he pretends to be, because when faced with Keith’s vulnerability, he says only, “Umm, yeah. Absolutely. I got you, buddy.”

Keith smiles, satisfied with his answer. As Lance seems frozen to the spot, Keith gives the wrist in still in his grip a final squeeze before saying, “Thanks,” and walking off.

—

As expected, Lance devotes himself especially to guarding Keith from the droids that session, which in turn allows Keith to focus on guarding the rest of the team more effectively. It does surprise him, however, when he and Lance are the last ones standing during the simulation. Even more surprising is when Lance ends up falling before Keith, trying to guard him from several shots at once and ending up getting himself hit. Naturally, Keith follows shortly after, having no one left to guard his back, but he thinks it’s probably the longest the team has ever lasted against the droids.

His suspicions are confirmed when Allura congratulates them. “Excellent work, paladins! You’ve all come a long way since your first encounter with this training simulation. Especially you, Lance. You did an outstanding job of keeping Keith safe. When you’re not fighting, the two of you really do make a good team.” Allura is practically radiating and he doesn’t miss the way Lance squirms at the praise. Well. He can’t have Lance getting distracted here, can he.

He places a hand onto Lance’s shoulder, leaning slightly into his space. “Yeah, Lance,” he breathes, “You did a really great job today.” Distantly, he can hear the others murmuring their agreement.

Lance is once again frozen in place, but to his credit, he recovers much more quickly this time. He clears his throat, and then, “Thank you, Princess. See, Keith, I always keep my promises.” 

Keith takes his preening as an opportunity to draw his hand away, but continues to smile at Lance as he does so. He doesn’t want to give him more than he can handle just yet.

“Okay, team. That was a good first drill but now it’s time to get back to work. Let’s try combat drills this time,” pipes Shiro, and naturally, they all follow.

—

Keith’s behavior today had been... unsettling, to say the least. It was probably more surprising to Lance than it should have been for Keith to act like anything other than a robot made specifically to be riled up by his quips, but he supposes he can’t really blame himself for expecting a pattern.

And it threw him, more than a little, when Keith broke that pattern. Seeing Keith vulnerable, of all things, was not something he expected to happen in his lifetime. Which was why he was so taken aback when it did happen. But Lance’s mama didn’t raise him to be a jerk, and so he did what he supposed any decent person would do in his position: accept Keith’s genuine request.

And damn, did he do his best to fulfill that request. He probably blocked twice as many shots for Keith as he did for the rest of the paladins combined. He couldn’t explain why, exactly, he’d felt such a need to devote himself to the cause; all he’d really needed to do was focus on protecting Keith rather than antagonizing him. But he’d gone as far as taking a fake bullet for him when it came down to it. Lance supposed he just really didn’t want to let anyone down.

Stranger still was the fact that Keith’s praise after the fact had felt almost as good as Allura’s. His... affinity for praise hadn’t exactly been a mystery to himself for quite a while, but as much as he’d always wanted to measure up to Keith, he had never had any specific want to be praised by him. Perhaps an admission of his superiority, but praise was much more something he craved from those he... was attracted to. It was... sort of... a kink, he supposes. And while it certainly made sense for him to preen at the pleasure of the beautiful Allura or even Shiro, Keith was a different story. Keith was... Keith. Pretty, sure, but also Keith. He shouldn’t... he wouldn’t... there was no reason for him to be as tickled with his pleasure as he was with Allura’s. And that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> f e e d m y c h i l d r e n with them comments pls


End file.
